Personality Flashcards
what is personality
a persons unique pattern of thinking, emotions and behaviour
- > how you typically behave in situations and what is characteristic of you in that regard
- > relatively stable and consistent
what are the main personality theories
- > psychodynamic
- > behaviouristic
- > social learning
- > humanistic
- > trait
personality is not ______
character
- > in terms of evaluation.. honest, moral values
temperament
- > inherited sensitivity/irritability/ability to adjust
psychodynamic perspectives
- > Freuds psychoanalytic theory - the original
- > proposed that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality
- > preposed during Victorian era, which is an era of repressed sexuality (women showed arm = whore)
psychoanalysis focused on _______
- > early childhood experiences
- > unconscious motives
- > conflicts
- > sexual and aggressive urges
- > “psyche” = personality
treatment involved in psychoanalysis
- > expose and interpret unconscious tensions/conflicts
*via free association (subject says literally whatever comes to mind)
freuds concept of unconscious mind
- > he though the unconscious mind is where we keep our unacceptable thoughts, wishes and feeling
- > now we view it as information processing of which we are unaware
levels of awareness
- > conscious
- > unconscious
- > preconscious
structure of personality of Freuds psychoanalytic theory
- > Id (animalistic/wild urges you need to keep in check)
- > Ego (the part of the personality that deals/balances both sides)
- > superego (concept of the policing of what we do; conscience)
characteristics of Ego
- > strives to satisfy impulses in ways that causes pleasure, not pain
- > neurotic anxiety results when ego has trouble controlling id impulses
freuds belief about women
he believed that women and girls feel a great betrayal, dismay and feeling of incompetence when they realize that they don’t have a penis
9 Defence mechanisms
Denial
Displacement
Identification
Projection
Rationalization
Reaction formation
Regression
Repression
Sublimation
regression
- > retreat to a more infantile state
ex. when you have a breakup, you climb into bed and grab your teddy bear from when you were a kid and call your mom to come take care of you
reaction formation
- > switches unacceptable impulse into its opposite
ex. a parent who is resentful of unplanned child becomes over protective
projection
- > disguise own threatening impulse by attributing it to others
ex. A man who feels insecure about his masculinity mocks other men for acting like women.
rationalization
offer self-justifying reason in place of real threatening, unconscious reasons
ex. a person who is turned down for a date might rationalize the situation by saying they were not attracted to the other person anyway
displacement
shift impulse toward a less threatening object or person (safer outlet)
ex. you know your boss is being abusive and theres nothing you can do about it, so you come home and yell at your boyfriend
sublimation
satisfy an impulse with a substitute object
ex. take kickboxing class to release some aggression
denial
block external events from awareness; refuse to experience it
repression
push threatening events out of consciousness
ex.
identification
try to become like someone else to deal with one’s anxiety
ex. you’re anxious about your boss at work telling you. guys to be faster, nicer, cleaner, ect. then you join in with your boss shitting on everyone
denial vs repression
denial
- > refuse to acknowledge its existence; active
repression
- > packed it down so deep it’s gone
stages of personality (psychosexual stages) development
each stage is characterized by sexual
- Oral
- Anal
- Phallic
- Latency
- Genital
oral stage
0-18 months
everything goes in your mouth; food, toys, nipple, food
pleasure focus
- > on mouth - sucking, biting, chewing
anal stage
18-36 months
pleasure focus on bowel and bladder elimination
- > proud if they poop; its how they cope with demands for control
phallic stage
3-6 years
pleasure focus on genitals
- > coping with incestuous feelings for their opposite sex parent
- > someone who fails to exit this stage will consider the other parent as rival, creating skewed gender roles
latency stage
6-puberty
dominant sexual feelings emerge
genital stage
puberty+
- > maturation of sexual interest
freudian slip
an unintentional error regarded as revealing subconscious feelings
what fixed Freuds Oral fixation
his love for cigars
main criticism of psychoanalytic theory
- > unverifiable concepts (couldn’t falsify)
- > sexist
- > description rather than prediction
neo-freudians (students)
Carl Jung
Alfred Adler
Karen Horney
carl jung
Freuds apparent heir
- > believed in personal unconscious
- > we strive towards individuation, try and be our best selfs
alfred adler
- > believed that we drive for superiority, not individualization (compensation, inferiority complex)
- > emphasize that we are social creatures
- > broke away from Freud which made Freud furious
Karen Horney
disagreed with Freuds view of women/male bias
- > believed that powerful childhood experience can impact your later life
- > agued people feel isolated and helpless in a hostile world (comes from experiences in childhood)
B.F. Skinner
pioneer of Behaviourism, he focused more on learning
- > behaviours are the reflection of our personalities and that we are shaped by society
- > principle of reinforcement
principle of reinforcement
action depends on consequences of previous actions (good or bad?)
Albert Bandura
observational learning (modelling)
- > argued that our personalities and behaviour are direclty related to what we encounter in our environments
- > developed over time by experiences
- > taylor swift
Walter Mischel
social-cognitive perspectives
- > deals with persons interaction with situation
- > behaviour are not consistent across situations
- > behaviour is dependant on situation (how the situation is perceived by the individual)
- > marshmallow effect (if you can resist then you’ll get 2)
Humanistic perspectives
self help, believe in yourself and be the best you can be
Carl Rogers
- > self actualization
- > growth and fulfillment
- > therapist has to be genuine, respectful and empathetic
Abraham Maslow purposed that…
- > hierarchy of needs
- > self actualization after base need is met
Hans Eysenck
pioneer of biological perspectives of personality
- > all personality trains are subsumed within
*extraversion-introversion
*neuroticism
*psychoticism
- > genetic basis of personality that are relatively stable and unchanging; environment interact with our biology
personality traits vs types
Traits
- > stable qualities that a person shows in most situations
Types
- > clusters of traits that often appear together
the big 5 model (personality traits)
(McCrae & Costa)
- Openness
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism (low N - > emotional stability)
openness
the degree to which you are….
- > imaginative or practical
- > interested in variety or routine
- > independent or conforming
conscientiousness
the degree to which you are…
- > organized or disorganized
- > careful or careless
- > disciplined or impulsive
Extraversion
the degree to which you are…
- > sociable or retiring
- > fun-loving or somber
- > affectionate or reserved
*your shoes off self, seek fun
agreeableness
the degree to which you are
- > empathic or ruthless
- > trusting or suspicious
- > helpful or uncooperative
- don’t be confused with extraversion, not all extroverts are agreeable*
neuroticism
the degree to which you are
- > anxious or calm
- > insecure or secure
- > self pitying or self-satisfied
Culture and the self and how they differ
WEIRD
Westernized
Educated
Industrialized
Rich
Democratic
different kinds of personality assessments
- > projective tests
- > self reports
- > behavioural assessment
Projective Tests
- > ambiguous stimuli (worshuck drawings)
- > assumption: the ambiguity allows person to project their personality onto stimulu
- > problem: lacks reliability and validity
self reports
ask people whether to what extend items describe them
- > assumption: people have insight into how they think and feel and are willing to and able to report on those insights
- > problem: social desirability bias, response set
behavioural assessment
directly observe a person’s behaviour
- > assumption: behaviour indicates something about their personality (rather than situation
- > problem: hard to develop objectively
personality judgments
Gosling et al.
observer rating of offices or bedroom and predict personality, gender, especially extraversion and conscientious
personality psychology
- > one of the most popular branches of psychology
- > the study of variation among individuals (our differences)
- > study how personality develops and how it influences our behaviour
- > assess, diagnose, and treat disorders
